In Ukraine real IDPs suffer because of the search for "fake" migrants. Part 1

In Ukraine real IDPs suffer because of the search for "fake" migrants. Part 1

Ukrainian state authorities will check the authenticity of all persons on their status and legitimacy of social payments

Nearly a million IDPs have come under suspicion from the SBU and may lose any state support.
Korrespondent has figured out who has been got to the black lists, and how to restore your good name, says Evgeniya Vetsko in №9 of the edition of March 11, 2016.

As early as in the summer of 2014 32-year-old Tatiana left the Luhansk and settled in the city of Melitopol in the Zaporizhye region. Her parents left in the hometown, but she has not visited it from the moment of departure. The girl did not travel farther than Zaporizhye and did not initiate issuing a pass to the occupied territory for her. And nevertheless she appeared in the lists of IDPs which certificates have been revoked at the direction of the SBU (Security Service of Uktaine).

In Ukraine there are from 500 thousand to 900 thousand people like she: persons who have stricken the SBU as suspicious.

"Almost half of the registered persons are fictitious. They will not have moved anywhere and are living in the occupied territory ", - states the head of department Vassiliy Gritsak. And Ukraine monthly spend at least 1 billion USD for their support.

Trust but verify

The first ever check of social payments starts in Ukraine. IDPs, retirees, vulnerable segments of the population — so, anyone to whom the government helps, will have to prove that they really have the right to the financial support.

Operating in cooperation with the banks, the Finance Ministry will ask for a minimum set of data on the recipients of social payments and to analyze other data obtained from official sources.

According to Minister of Finance Natalia Yaresko, more than 350 billion hryvnias were provided at this year for social payments from the budget. "And we cannot be sure that all the people who will receive the money are honest. In some countries, it was found by the results of the verification that 30% of the budget money have been received by swindlers", - the official has explained.

It is difficult to say how many of them will be in Ukraine. The first stage of verification, a pilot project to verify the IDPs, has shown that there were a lot. For example, there has been found 1.8 thousand people receiving pensions in the passports of which it was stated that they are from 100 to 120 years old. In total, according to data of the SBU, pensions were "received" by about 60 thousand of dead people.
Tens of billions of hryvnias allocated from the state budget to support IDPs have been misappropriated by swindlers from "LPR/DPR", say in the Ministry of Social Policy.

The SBU officers found a number of addresses in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions where thousands of internally displaced persons have been registered in the same house or even an apartment. For example, in the town of Izyum in the Kharkiv region 3.293 migrants receiving pensions and social payments, have been registered in one apartment of the house which is not found in nature.

Officials from the departments of Social Security, Pension Fund and the Migration Service of Ukraine were involved in criminal schemes. Security forces seized 3.9 million hryvnyas, USD $ 878 thousand., € 10 thousand, 14 million Russian rubles from the suspected. 24 criminal cases were initiated.

Judging by the zeal of the security forces and officials of Ministry of Social Policy, it is only the beginning. Therefore, they call the considerable amount that it will be able to save for the budget - about 5 billion hryvnyas. Most hopes of the officials are related just with pockets of the people registered in the occupied territories. In recent months Ministry of Social Policy has suspended payments for 150 thousand of allegedly false migrants. Several hundred thousands are the next.

"Check is not a cancellation of social payments; it does not threaten honest citizens. Its purpose is to identify the swindlers", - emphasizes the Minister of Finance. "The migrants who were forced to leave the territories uncontrolled by the Ukrainian authorities have nothing to fear. Officials and swindlers who have organized these criminal schemes and misappropriate means of the state budget of Ukraine should be afraid", - reassures the Minister of Social Policy Pavel Rozenko.
But IDPs suffer so far.

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